Something Beautiful
by ReaderMarz
Summary: A short drabble from Mako's perspective concerning how she may have felt after her parents died, and what she may have done. Slightly AU. Rating for discussion of death.


I sat down to practice writing and the following created itself, so I thought I'd share. This is in all probability due to a conversation I had with Crosswood, so thanks to her for the inspiration. If you like what you read, please review. Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, or any of the characters mentioned herein.

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><p>"Let me show you something."<p>

Those were the words she said._ Let me show you something. _I don't know why I stopped, why I turned and followed her. I don't know why I cared.

That's a lie.

I know full well why I am nine blocks north of my intended destination, already half an hour late for my first class; with every step I take after the girl walking before me I know the chances of retracing the path and continuing on to my training become slimmer and slimmer.

I am here because I am intrigued, and it has been so long since I was intrigued. Since someone has intrigued me. I am not sure why, neither why I haven't felt this way nor why she inspires this swelling of curiosity in me, but to be honest I don't really care. As of thirty minutes ago I didn't think I could care any longer. Not since my parents died.

Choices. Left or right, black or with cream, the first flight or the second. Some choices don't matter, some are a matter of taste, and some determine the difference between returning home or taking up residence in the local cemetery. It's funny, in an ironic way; because I visit their graves so often I pretty much live in the cemetery, too, instead of the home I can't stand to enter. Choices. I did listen, I was paying attention to all that crap about the arbitrary nature of fate and destiny and choice everyone spouted at me at the funeral three years ago...I didn't speak for the longest time, by choice, and then I just stopped making them. Choices, that is. I just went with it. When someone pushed me I'd spin with it then slam my accelerated closed fist into their nose. I did this both figuratively and literally. I discovered I had a flair for martial arts, but I never made a choice to become a martial artist. It just happened. I wandered into a dojo where a tall blonde woman, the only person taller than me I had ever met, except my father, took one look and barked at me to go put on the gi hanging in the office. I did. She told me to follow her moves. I did. Now, two years after that first meeting her dojo is the first place I go to in the morning and the last I leave at night, before going to the cemetery to fall asleep curled around my parent's tombstone. I don't know why I kept going back at first, but again, that's a lie. The woman didn't give me a choice. She must have read something in my hollow eyes, seen the Makoto that was my spirit floundering in a pit of tar deep inside what used to be my chest and made the decision to take the reins of my life. I suppose I am grateful. She saw weakness and made me strong. She saw hunger and fed me food and a philosophy. She saw a child battering against the chaos that is fate and offered a practice to regain control. She didn't just throw the lifeline and expect me to grab it, she twisted it around my broken body and drug me back. Because she didn't offer a choice, I couldn't refuse her help.

Today is now the first day in two years I didn't go straight to the dojo for training. I wonder what Haruka will think. She will probably wonder, but knowing her, she won't ask. Instead, I will suffer the required apology-spar tomorrow, like all her other pupils who act up.

But. Right now, I am not in the dojo. I am following a girl, and we are fifteen blocks away from where I should be, in fact we are almost to the park. I can see the tips of green leaves peaking around the nearby buildings; I can smell the lighter, fresher scent of living greenery and running water. The girl in front of me can, too. Her pace picks up—I don't know how someone with such short legs can walk so quickly so effortlessly—and we reach the edge of the greenbelt in no time. She abruptly halts and I, caught up in my rumbling thoughts bump into her, my long arms reaching from where they were jammed into my pockets to grab at her shoulders to steady us both. She doesn't tense at my sudden touch, or even shift. She just slowly raises her right hand and points into the park, holding her delicate arm parallel to the ground, her hand loosely clasped into a fist with only her graceful index finger extended.

"Look," she says, her voice no more than a breathy exhale.

I turn my head—even standing directly behind her, I can clearly see over her shoulder-length black hair—and follow her gesture with my eyes, trying to discern what she brought me here to see. Trees, bushes, a few early morning walkers striding down the winding path, the pond in the distance: I don't understand what I am supposed to be looking for. "At what, exactly, should I look?"

"No, stop trying so hard. Just look." Her voice, low and firm, seemed to float from the air itself.

I cast my dubious gaze on the top of her head, taking in her comfortable stance and still-extended arm, and with a sigh I turned back to where she was pointing. I pretended I was back in the dojo, Haruka's words echoing around the cavernous room telling me to be at peace in myself before I tried to take pieces from around me. I closed my eyes and with a deep whooshing breath let my stress and tension dribble down my body and out the bottom of my shoes to be replaced by the sense of solid earth reaching through my feet. _I am a tree with roots in the earth._ I grounded myself quickly, the two years of practice paying off. Haruka would have been proud. Only a few seconds had passed, and when I opened my eyes once again I let my soul see the park, not my brain. The wind dancing with the rustling leaves, two robins feeding three younglings on a low branch, a smiling old man sitting next to a smiling old dog on a bench, the pond gurgling as a medium-sized fish leapt free to catch an unlucky grasshopper: it was beautiful.

"It's beautiful." The girl's voice broke my reverie, her words echoing my thought. "You need to remember there is life. There will always be death, but there will always be life. Without one there cannot be the other. Sadness is allowed, of course, but to dwell in it only causes pain, not resolution. It is time to move on." As she spoke her last sentence she broke free from my touch on her shoulders and bolted into the trees, disappearing from my sight almost immediately.

Staring after her in shock, my hands resting on thin air, a wide smile suddenly split my face. I had no idea who that girl was, but she was right. It was time to move on. I threw my hands into the air, laughing out loud. I turned around and began the walk toward the dojo, looking forward to what the day would bring. The girl inside of me had finally broken out of the pit and shaken off the tar. Maybe Haruka would be able to spar with me today; I felt like I could give her a run for her money. I, Makoto Kino, was finally ready to make a choice. For the first time in three years, I could feel the smiles from my parents watching over me as I broke into a jog, eager to start living once again.

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><p>Short, but hopefully enjoyable. Thanks for reading!<p> 


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